In the book Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less Greg McKeown gives three truths that will help an individual live a lifestyle of simplicity or as he calls it an essentialist lifestyle:

• Understand you have a choice. You choose how to spend your energy and time.
• The prevalence of noise. Almost everything is noise and very few things are exceptionally valuable. Therefore, you need to be intentional about discerning what is valuable and what’s noise. Too many people live cluttered and unfiltered lives
• The reality of trade-offs. You really can’t have it all or do it all. Once an individual accepts the reality of trade-offs they can stop asking, “How can I make it all work?” and start asking the more honest question of “which problem do I want to solve?”